The Orange County Board of Education unanimously approved on Feb. 1 a “parents’ bill of rights” that grants parents the right to “access, participate in and be notified” in all aspects of their children’s education.
The policy expands parental control over student learning in the Orange County Department of Education’s schools, giving parents the right to be informed of, access, inspect, and recommend classroom lessons, assignments, curricula, displays, and additional materials.
The policy allows parents to opt their children out of sex education lessons that they deem inappropriate before such is presented to students. Parents also have the right to be informed of their children’s seeking counseling and preferred gender pronouns in school.
Trustee Jorge Valdes, who introduced the proposal, said during the Jan. 4 board meeting that he introduced the policy because of several local instances of teachers “going beyond their bounds as teachers.”
“I don’t want anything I’m doing here to be interpreted as an assault on teachers,” Valdes said. “Nonetheless it is clear to me that there is a small fraction of teachers—less than one percent—who are going ... well beyond what they should be teaching in the classrooms.”
He mentioned an example in which a San Juan Hills High School teacher made headlines last year with an “alternative queer library” featuring books that contained explicit sexual content.
“[The teacher] was very clear they were trying to hide that library from parents in their social media posts,” Valdes said.
The policy is also partially inspired by his observation when visiting his district’s schools in Tustin, Santa Ana, Garden Grove, and Fountain Valley, he said.
“I feel that parents are substantially disregarded there,” Valdes said.
There were no parents opposing or supporting the policy during the meeting’s public comment.
Although Trustee Ken Williams was absent from the vote, he expressed his support for the policy during the January meeting.
“I wholeheartedly support and agree ... with the thinking and the mindset behind this,” Williams said. “The [state] empowers the board to make these types of policies. Whether or not another school board adopts this, this is about local control of education.”
Board President Lisa Sparks echoed Williams’s sentiments.
“Parents need to understand what’s going on in the classroom, and parents and teachers need to learn to work together on educating children in the core subjects,” she said during the meeting.
